


Where to, Cas?

by okaynowkiss



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s09e06 Heaven Can't Wait, M/M, Missing Scene, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 20:33:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1578626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaynowkiss/pseuds/okaynowkiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wasn’t Cas similar to him in some way, at least? Wasn’t that the deal?</p><p>  <i>(Takes place during 9x06: picks up right after Cas kills Ephraim. I was rewatching this episode last night and I couldn't help it, I had to finish this old draft, even seven months late. There's no reason it isn't canon-compliant up to current episodes, and… I just still fully believe that this is what happens during that missing scene!)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Where to, Cas?

Cas is holding onto that blade like it's burned to his palm. He's also not moving; he looks confused and blank.

"You okay?" Dean asks him from the floor. 

It wakes Cas up a little, from wherever he went after stabbing Ephraim. He nods, and his eyes flick over Dean on the ground. "Are you hurt?" he asks.

"Nah, I'm good." To prove it, Dean gets his hands under himself and lifts up. There's sigil blood smeared on the door when he turns, and the baby, in her crib, is miraculously not crying but is making some reassuringly alive-sounding noises. Which leaves only— "Nora?"

"She's—" Cas's eyebrows knit together. "She’s not here. So she should be fine. It wasn’t... She asked me here to babysit Tanya, it turns out, not to go on a date with her.”

Well. They can talk about that later in a place that is less Cas’s boss’s house and that’s got fewer infants and ideally zero blood. Still Dean’s eyes must go just a little bit teasingly wide as Cas confesses this, because Cas is rolling his eyes and turning away before Dean can even say anything. He drops the angel blade on the counter and takes a dishtowel over to the sink. 

Dean sidles up to him and peers into the basin. There’s quite a lot of blood on his hand and Cas isn’t holding it right: it’s bent. “Can I—” he starts to say, going for Cas’s wrist, but Cas interrupts him.

“Can you check on Tanya? I need to stop the bleeding, but she’s—she has a fever and I was going to take her to the hospital.” 

“Jesus. All right.” Dean leaves Cas in the kitchen, tying off the dishtowel he’s been wrapping around his bloody palm with his good hand and his teeth.

Tanya gets a little fussy, now that Dean’s leaning over her, watching her. Reaching her little fists up abortively and dropping them back to her body. “Hey, girl, you’re okay,” he tells her quietly, and scoops her up. She’s so dangerously, terribly small. She feels maybe a little warm. It could also just be Cas’s suggestion of the idea taking root in his mind. “When’s Nora coming back, Cas?” he asks, voice low so as not to disturb the baby pressed against his chest.

Cas looks up from wiping blood off the glass panes of the door. He watches Dean rocking Tanya for a moment before answering, his expression unreadable. “Any minute. And...” He tilts his head to that body that so recently was Ephraim.

“Right. Then she’s okay, she might be a little warm, but Nora will know better than I do. If there’a thermometer we can take her temperature; give her baby Aspirin or something. Going to a doctor now, us taking her, it would make more trouble for them than it’s worth.”

Cas holds still for another minute, appraising Dean. “If she’s not in danger. Then yes, let’s just clean this up. I didn’t know how to tell...” He shakes his head and then turns back to his work, wiping more of his own blood from the surface.

“You did fine,” Dean says, and Cas doesn’t look up or acknowledge it. “You did good,” he says, even quieter, mostly toward little Tanya in his arms, although the words are for Cas. He places her down gently, back in her crib, and for a moment, crazy, he misses her. She’d been warm and sweet to hold.

Dean hefts the dead man’s body over his shoulder and heads out front, stopping on the front porch to check there’s no one around to see him dumping a corpse into the trunk of a car. The coast is clear, and there’s nothing to do but get it over with fast. The longer he takes the bigger the chance some nosy neighbor will catch a glimpse. Or Nora could come home, and he can’t burn this bridge for Cas. It’s done in less than thirty seconds: that thing that was briefly Ephraim safely locked in the trunk, and Dean returning to check on Cas.

Evidence of the scuffle and the bloodletting and the stabbing are gone like none of them ever happened, as far as Nora’s place is concerned. But Cas is bleeding and cradling a broken wrist, which he drops to his side like it’s fine when Dean appears, and those four people’s lives are exploded into pink goo, and there might be the sooty shape of disfigured wings on the laminate floor, like a shadow that shifts when you look at it, not like anything any civilian would notice.

A car’s engine toward the house and then stops out front. They’d cleaned in the nick of time. Dean raises his eyebrows. “Want me to go out the back?”

Cas’s lips purse, then his face clears like he’s figured it out and he shakes his head. “No, it’s fine.”

Nora sweeps through in a breeze of greetings and apologies from both her and Cas and goes right for the crib, where she pulls Tanya to her. “Hello, dear,” she says, and kisses her cheek. Tanya squirms happily.

Nora smiles at Dean and Cas then, relieved. “She’ll be fine. You’re right, I think she’s a little warm; I’ll take her temperature in a minute here, and if it’s too high I’ll call the doctor, but I think she’ll just need some medicine.”

“Oh—” Cas says, unsure. “Good. I’m—”

And when he doesn’t go on right away, Dean kind of can’t handle it and also Nora is probably confused at why he’s even in her house, so yeah, it’s about that time. He claps a hand on Cas’s shoulder. “I’ll be out at the car, okay?” To Nora, he adds, “Sorry for just showing up. She’s cute,” he nods at Tanya. “She’s—she’s cute.”

Cas nods tightly at him and Nora smiles. “No, thank you for coming. I’m sorry she gave you a scare. It was nice to meet you.”

He gives her a last nod and then makes his exit. It’s probably about time to give Sam a call anyway.

 

*

 

“There’s no putting the angels back in Heaven. It’s done. Are you gonna tell Cas?”

From where Dean’s leaning against the Impala, he can see a little blue bungalow across the street from Nora’s place. While Sam, back in Kansas, waits for him to answer, here in Idaho the upstairs light in that stranger’s house turns on, yellow behind white curtains.

He can halfway imagine telling this to Cas. _Listen, man, there’s no fixing it. Just got to move on. The other angels, they’ll be okay._

Over the phone his brother sighs and starts to say something, but Nora’s gate clinks open behind Dean so he cuts him off. “I’ve gotta go.” 

Cas has got that arm held close to his body. What did he tell Nora about it? For that matter, what exactly did he tell Nora about Dean? His wrist is tied up with one of her dish towels, but it’s an easy thing to lie about. He could’ve cut it while making a sandwich. It’s broken, too, and it’s got to hurt like a bitch, but Cas can be stoic as hell, and Dean is sure he played it off as minor.

And for Dean or Sam, or Cas until lately, it would’ve been minor.

Still, he’s walking and talking and not dying, and Dean’s pretty glad to see him just then, heading toward the Impala. “Where to, Cas?” 

But he just gives Dean a look, like, _are you serious?_ , and lowers himself into the seat. Which, yeah, Dean understands. Pissed at Dean or not, he’s in the car, and that’s something. That’s a lot. So Dean climbs in next to him and starts her up, even drives a few blocks to put some distance between them and the place they were.

“So we can go to my motel and I can patch you up, if you want. It looks—” He glances over at Cas’s wrist, and the degree to which Cas doesn’t even look bothered by the pain is either disconcerting or heartening, depending on how you think about it. His friend is staring out the passenger window as the houses roll by, but he glances over when he feels that Dean has stopped talking to wait for him. “It looks broken. If you’d let me look at it, I could—Anyway. I’ve set my share of wrists. Or if you want to go to the doctor we can do that. What’s it gonna be?”

That, Dean figures, is more fair. A simple choice. Keeps things in the present. Doesn’t call to mind the fact that they should both be in Kansas right now. Still, it’s a minute before Cas answers.

“It’s not bad,” he says of the wrist. “You can wrap it. I might need stitches, too.” There’s blood seeping into the leg of his pants where his hand is resting.

“You got it,” Dean agrees, and keeps driving. He’d been heading for the motel anyway. The car rides just a little heavy, a little off balance, and Dean doesn’t for a second forget about what’s in the trunk.

But injuries first, grave-digging after.

When it gets quiet, Cas turns the radio on with his good arm. It’s static at first, the stations shifted from wherever Dean last listened to it. Cas scans up to a station and lets it play without checking first to see what song is on. It’s classical, a full orchestra, oddly melancholic even for late night radio airplay.

After a few minutes of it, Dean clears his throat. “This what you guys listen to in the gas station?”

“We don’t listen to music. Sometimes we watch the news.”

“Huh.”

They take Route 20 most of the way out of town to get back to the motel, past McDonald’s and Dairy Queen and a couple freight yards and a Sears ( _Does Sears still exist?_ Dean thinks. This whole place has a time-warp vibe.), another McDonald’s and a KFC. “Hey, if you’re hungry—” Dean glances at him quickly—Cas has got his head tilted back and doesn’t look over— “had to go pretty far out of town to find a room, so we should stop around here, if you want something... Did you eat?”

“I haven’t eaten. Anything is fine.” 

“Burgers it is.”

 

*

 

Dean unlocks the motel room door and ushers Cas in before him with his free arm. He drops the McDonald’s bags on the table and locks the door behind them. “So, food or the arm first?” he asks, tossing his duffel bag onto a chair. 

“I think we should wrap my wrist,” Cas says, and it’s the first time he’s talked in about ten minutes and he sounds drained. He sinks into a chair on the other side of the table and it occurs to Dean that he is maybe pretty badly hurt. Okay. So.

Dean grabs an ice pack from the freezer and takes a knee in front of Cas. “All right,” he says, in what he hopes is a reassuring way. “Hold this on here—” he lays it against Cas’s forearm gently— “for a minute, and I’ll clean up the cut first, okay?”

Cas’s uninjured hand comes up to take the cold pack from Dean and when they’re exchanging the hold on it, Cas meets his eyes. “Okay,” he agrees, and even quirks his mouth into half a smile. It’s gone as soon as it appears; he’s clearly in a lot of pain and doesn’t want to say so.

God, Dean was a dick to him back in the Gas-n-Sip. Cas is just a person now, basically. In most of the important ways. He’s wearing sneakers and clothes that fit him and there’s blood on his jeans, and Dean had looked at him and told him that the thing he’d chosen to do was beneath him. It wasn’t what Dean would’ve done, is all. Getting that job. And wasn’t Cas similar to him in some way, at least? Wasn’t that the deal?

He cleans the cut and sanitizes it and it’s not so bad, doesn’t need to be stitched now that he can see it. But he makes it as comfortable as he can and wraps a bandage around Cas’s palm. He keeps asking if Cas is okay and at some point Cas stops answering and when Dean looks at him, he’s just staring off toward the curtained window resolutely. Okay.

When it’s all set and done Dean stands up heavily, stiff now from being thrown around by Ephraim a few hours ago. While Cas moves his arm experimentally, slowly, Dean pulls out the food, still half-warm.

“Here.” He pushes a wrapped burger across the table and Cas looks sort of interested for the first time in awhile.

“That smells good,” he admits, and unwraps it one-handed. They eat in silence for a few minutes, the events of the day now caught up to them. Cas probably has more to process than Dean does, and Dean wouldn’t mind knowing more about the Rit Zien and about all of it, but Cas doesn’t share any of it.

“So how is it?” Dean inclines his head to the bandaged arm, which should be a safer topic. “Feeling better?” When there’s a bad pause, he adds, “Probably hurts like a bitch, I know.”

Cas’s face is brutally open for a second and it gets Dean somewhere in his throat to see his eyes wide like that. “No, you don’t, but it’s okay,” Cas says.

Dean opens his hands on the table. “Look, man, _you_ killed Ephraim.”

“He would’ve killed me if you hadn’t shown up.”

“I’d be dead a hundred different times if you or Sam hadn’t shown up! That’s how it goes.”

Cas shakes his head and pushes away the wrappers in front of him. “I should probably get back to the store.”

“What?” Dean scoffs. “No, I—” Incidentally he has been trying not to know this particular fact, and he still doesn’t definitely know it, but, well. Cas isn’t renting some yet-unmentioned room in town. Dean halfway knew it the first time he saw Cas at the Gas-n-Sip. Cas’s familiarities are not divided between two places that are both his, a job and a bedroom: his life is at the Gas-n-Sip and it was his life that Dean mocked earlier. Still, he doesn’t have to make Cas come out and say it.

“Look,” Dean says instead, and tries to sound final about it. “I have to go take care of that body Ephraim was squatting in. Get some rest here, okay? I’ll be gone a couple hours.”

“You got beat up, too,” Cas says.

“Yeah, but I’m not responsible for a store in the morning, and I don’t have any broken bones. So, would you just—”

Dean’s trying to sweep imperiously from the room but he keeps stopping because he can’t take his eyes off of Cas. Willing him to just say yes and go to bed so Dean doesn’t have to feel like the worst person who’s ever lived.

“Fine,” Cas says finally, and he seems annoyed instead of sad and that seems like a step up to Dean, really.

“Yeah?” Dean raises his eyebrows hopefully. “Okay, take the bed. I haven’t even slept in it, I stayed on the couch last night, so it’s all yours. What time do you have to be at the store?”

“Six-thirty.”

“Got it. So I’ll drive you in the morning. I’ll be back in a bit. Just, make yourself at home, all right?”

“Thanks,” Cas says, and it sounds like he doesn’t mean to say thanks for everything but that’s the way it comes out anyway. He looks up sort of guiltily at Dean over in the doorway.

“Thanks for calling me,” Dean blurts out. “I mean it.”

Cas nods once at him and the air feels settled, even though there are fifty other things Dean should have said, so he nods back with a smile he can feel on his face, and leaves to go put that man’s bones in the ground.

 

*

 

He’s asleep on the couch not-enough hours later, ankle across the far arm rest and forearm thrown over his eyes, when someone shakes him awake gently by the arm.

“Hello,” Cas says, and even seems a little amused when Dean squints up at him.

He tries to speak but he’s so tired it just comes out as “Mmm.” This is deeper than he usually sleeps, really, couch or not. It was nice to come back last night to Cas totally knocked out in that bed. Dean had gotten ready for bed quietly so as not to wake him, although he thought there was little he could’ve done that would’ve disturbed him anyway. His breathing stayed deep and even the whole time, and Dean fell asleep listening to it. “Time to go?”

“You have a few minutes.”

Dean sits up and runs a hand through his hair. The movement makes him wince. He meets Cas’s eyes and then pulls up his t-shirt to examine the growing bruise on his side, leading up from his hip.

“Dean...”

“It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” As consolation he reaches out a hand to let Cas pull him up to stand from the couch.

He does so with his good arm, reluctantly. “You’re really hurt,” he says, fingers still wrapped around Dean’s wrist.

“Nah,” he says, and he doesn’t want to be too tough with it but he means it. He removes Cas’s hand from him gently, and nearly laughs when it makes Cas squint suspiciously at him. “That seems better, huh?”

Cas turns his bandaged arm over a few times. “It’s much better,” he agrees.

Dean checks the time on his cell phone where it’s waiting on the table. “Two minutes, okay?”

Cas nods. He’s already dressed in his uniform, jeans with only the faintest blood stain on them. 

When Dean gets out of the bathroom and checks his bags, he pauses at his folded clothes. “You want some new jeans?” he asks, pretty successfully lightly.

Predictably, Cas shakes his head. “They won’t fit, anyway. And these are okay.”

Dean looks him over. “Yeah,” he says, because it’s true. “Those are good.”

They lock up the room and Dean thinks about giving him the keys and telling him to stay there as long as he wants, and doesn’t do it.

When they make it to the Gas-n-Sip in time for Cas’s shift Dean wants nothing as much as to keep Cas in the car with him, to bring him back to the bunker. He wants it enough that he knows it would be a shitty, unfair thing to do. Instead he does the best he can. He tries to fix some of those things he said and he tries to give back to Cas what Cas had already given himself before Dean swept in. “I’m proud of you,” Dean says, and yeah, he is, among other things. 

He’s sure it won’t work. Cas is similar to Dean after all, of course, even though it would be better if he weren’t.

“Can I really sit this out?” Cas asks him. “Shouldn't I be searching for a way to get them home?”

Cas doesn’t know which way he’s going to go yet: stay out of the fight and live the quiet life, or once more into the fray?

But Dean does.

Or maybe they’re both just pretending, for the other’s sake, when they wave goodbye over the empty seat in the Impala and act like it’s sad but it has to be this way.

This was a reprieve and Dean didn’t realize it until too late: until right now. This small town in Idaho was a break in the action, and it’s over now. How much has he thought about Ezekiel in the last couple days? Plenty, but not nearly enough. The next time Dean sees Cas things will be different.

He turns on the radio as he pulls out of the parking lot. It’s that classical music station and it still sounds strangely sad. Cas said they don’t listen to music in the store but after hours he must, because he knew that station without having to look for it.

Dean wants to let it play until the signal fades out—wouldn’t take long, probably—but he loses patience with it a few blocks away and shoves a cassette into the tape deck instead. Cas is standing under florescent lights alone being polite to strangers and Dean is driving away in an empty car. He isn’t totally sure anymore that this is the way it has to be, but this is still the way it is. This was a reprieve, but it’s over.


End file.
